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1 1 Valuing Young, Start-up and Growth Companies: Estimation Issues and Valuation Challenges Aswath Damodaran Stern School of Business, New York University May 2009

2 2 Valuing Young, Start-up and Growth Companies: Estimation Issues and Valuation Challenges Young companies are difficult to value for a number of reasons. Some are start-up and idea businesses, with little or no revenues and operating losses. Even those young companies that are profitable have short histories and most young firms are dependent upon private capital, initially owner savings and venture capital and private equity later on. As a result, many of the standard techniques we use to estimate cash flows, growth rates and discount rates either do not work or yield unrealistic numbers. In addition, the fact that most young companies do not survive has to be considered somewhere in the valuation. In this paper, we examine how best to value young companies. We use a combination of data on more mature companies in the business and the company s own characteristics to forecast revenues, earnings and cash flows. We also establish processes for estimating discount rates for private capital and for adjusting the value today for the possibility of failure. In the process, we argue that the venture capital approach to valuation that is widely used now is flawed and should be replaced.

3 3 Valuing companies early in the life cycle is difficult, partly because of the absence of operating history and partly because most young firms do not make it through these early stages to success. In this paper, we will look at the challenges we face when valuing young companies and the short cuts employed by many who have to estimate the value of these businesses to arrive at value. While some of the rules for valuing young businesses make intuitive sense, there are other rules that inevitably lead to erroneous and biased estimates of value. Young companies in the economy It may be a cliché that the entrepreneurs provide the energy for economic growth, but it is also true that vibrant economies have a large number of young, idea businesses, striving to get a foothold in markets. In this section, we will begin by taking a look at where young companies fall in the business life cycle and the role they play in the overall economy. We will follow up by looking at some characteristics that young companies tend to share. A Life cycle view of young companies If every business starts with an idea, young companies can range the spectrum. Some are unformed, at least in a commercial sense, where the owner of the business has an idea that he or she thinks can fill an unfilled need among consumers. Others have inched a little further up the scale and have converted the idea into a commercial product, albeit with little to show in terms of revenues or earnings. Still others have moved even further down the road to commercial success, and have a market for their product or service, with revenues and the potential, at least, for some profits.

4 4 Figure 1: The Early Stages of the Life Cycle Revenues Idea companies No revenues Operating losses Starrt-up ccmpanies Small revenues Increasing losses Second-stage companies Growing revenues Move towards profts Earnings Since young companies tend to be small, they represent only a small part of the overall economy. However, they tend to have a disproportionately large impact on the economy for several reasons. 1. Employment: While there are few studies that focus just on start-ups, there is evidence that small businesses account for a disproportionate share of new jobs created in the economy. The National Federation of Independent Businesses estimates that about two-thirds of the new jobs created in the recent years have been created by small businesses, and that start-ups account for a large share of these new jobs Innovation: In the early 1990s, Clayton Christensen, a strategy guru from the Harvard Business School, argued that radical innovation, i.e., innovation that disrupted traditional economic mechanisms, was unlikely to come from established firms, since 1 NFIB Small Business Policy Guide, Small Business Contributions in Small Business Policy Guide.

5 5 they have too much to lose from the innovation, but more likely to come from start-up companies that have little to lose. Thus, online retailing was pioneered by a young upstart, Amazon.com, rather than by traditional retailers. 3. Economic growth: The economies that have grown the fastest in the last few decades have been those that have a high rate of new business formation. Thus, the US was able to generate much more rapid economic growth than Western Europe during the 1990s, primarily as a consequence of the growth of small, new technology companies. Similarly, much of the growth in India has come from smaller, technology companies than it has from established companies. Characteristics of young companies As we noted in the last section, young companies are diverse, but they share some common characteristics. In this section, we will consider these shared attributes, with an eye on the valuation problems/issues that they create. 1. No history: At the risk of stating the obvious, young companies have very limited histories. Many of them have only one or two years of data available on operations and financing and some have financials for only a portion of a year, for instance. 2. Small or no revenues, operating losses: The limited history that is available for young companies is rendered even less useful by the fact that there is little operating detail in them. Revenues are small or non-existent for idea companies and the expenses often are associated with getting the business established, rather than generating revenues. In combination, they result in significant operating losses. 3. Dependent on private equity: While there are a few exceptions, young businesses are dependent upon equity from private sources, rather than public markets. At the earlier stages, the equity is provided almost entirely by the founder (and friends and family). As the promise of future success increases, and with it the need for more capital, venture capitalists become a source of equity capital, in return for a share of the ownership in the firm. 4. Many don t survive: Most young companies don t survive the test of commercial success and fail. There are several studies that back up this statement, though they vary in the failure rates that they find. A study of 5196 start-ups in Australia found

6 6 that the annual failure rate was in excess of 9% and that 64% of the businesses failed in a 10-year period. 2 Knaup and Piazza (2005,2008) used data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) to compute survival statistics across firms. 3 This census contains information on more than 8.9 million U.S. businesses in both the public and private sector. Using a seven-year database from 1998 to 2005, the authors concluded that only 44% of all businesses that were founded in 1998 survived at least 4 years and only 31% made it through all seven years. In addition, they categorized firms into ten sectors and estimated survival rates for each one. Table 1 presents their findings on the proportion of firms that made it through each year for each sector and for the entire sample: Table 1: Survival of new establishments founded in 1998 Proportion of firms that were started in 1998 that survived through Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Year 6 Year 7 Natural resources 82.33% 69.54% 59.41% 49.56% 43.43% 39.96% 36.68% Construction 80.69% 65.73% 53.56% 42.59% 36.96% 33.36% 29.96% Manufacturing 84.19% 68.67% 56.98% 47.41% 40.88% 37.03% 33.91% Transportation 82.58% 66.82% 54.70% 44.68% 38.21% 34.12% 31.02% Information 80.75% 62.85% 49.49% 37.70% 31.24% 28.29% 24.78% Financial activities 84.09% 69.57% 58.56% 49.24% 43.93% 40.34% 36.90% Business services 82.32% 66.82% 55.13% 44.28% 38.11% 34.46% 31.08% Health services 85.59% 72.83% 63.73% 55.37% 50.09% 46.47% 43.71% Leisure 81.15% 64.99% 53.61% 43.76% 38.11% 34.54% 31.40% Other services 80.72% 64.81% 53.32% 43.88% 37.05% 32.33% 28.77% All firms 81.24% 65.77% 54.29% 44.36% 38.29% 34.44% 31.18% Note that survival rates vary across sectors, with only 25% of firms in the information sector (which includes technology) surviving 7 years, whereas almost 44% of health service businesses make it through that period. 5. Multiple claims on equity: The repeated forays made by young companies to raise equity does expose equity investors, who invested earlier in the process, to the possibility that their value can be reduced by deals offered to subsequent equity investors. To protect their interests, equity investors in young companies often 2 John Watson and Jim Everett, 1996, Do Small Businesses Have High Failure Rates? Journal of Small Business Management, v34, pg Knaup, Amy E., May 2005,, Survival and longevity in the Business Employment Dynamics data, Monthly Labor Review, pp ; Knaup, Amy E. and MC. Piazza, September 2007, Business Employment Dynamics Data: Survival and Longevity, Monthly Labor Review, pp 3-10.

7 7 demand and get protection against this eventuality in the form of first claims on cash flows from operations and in liquidation and with control or veto rights, allowing them to have a say in the firm s actions. As a result, different equity claims in a young company can vary on many dimensions that can affect their value. 6. Investments are illiquid: Since equity investments in young firms tend to be privately held and in non-standardized units, they are also much more illiquid than investments in their publicly traded counterparts. Valuation Issues The fact that young companies have limited histories, are dependent upon equity from private sources and are particularly susceptible to failure all contribute to making them more difficult to value. In this section, we will begin by considering the estimation issues that we run into in discounted cash flow valuations and we will follow up by evaluating why these same issues crop up when we do relative valuation. Intrinsic (DCF) Valuation There are four pieces that make up the intrinsic valuation puzzle the cash flows form existing assets, the expected growth from both new investments and improved efficiency on existing assets, the discount rates that emerge from our assessments of risk in both the business and its equity, and the assessment of when the firm will become a stable growth firm (allowing us to estimate terminal value). On each of these measures, young firms pose estimation challenges that can be traced back to their common characteristics. Existing Assets The standard approach to valuing existing assets is to use the current financial statements of the firm and its history to estimate the cash flows from these assets and to attach a value to them. With some young firms, existing assets represent such a small proportion of the overall value of the firm that it makes little sense to expend resources estimating their value. With other young firm, where existing assets may have some value, the problem is that the financial statements made available by the firm provide little relevant information is assessing that value, for the following reasons:

8 8 The absence of historical data makes it difficult to assess how well the revenues from existing assets will hold up if macro economic conditions become less favorable. In other words, if all you have is one year of financial data, it is more difficult to make a judgment on whether the revenues represent a flash in the pan or are sustainable. The lack of data from prior years also makes it more difficult to analyze how revenues would change, if the company changes its pricing policy of faces new competition. The expenses that young companies incur to generate future growth are often mixed in with the expenses associated with generating current revenues. For instance, it is not unusual to see the Selling, General and Administrative (S,G&A) expenses at some young companies be three or four times larger than revenues, largely because they include the expenses associated with lining up future customers. To value existing assets, we have to be able to separate these expenses from genuine operating expenses and that is not easy to do. Growth Assets The bulk of a young company s value comes from growth assets. Consequently, the difficulties that we have in assessing the value of growth assets are at the heart of whether we can value these companies in the first place. There are several problems that we run into, when valuing young companies: The absence of revenues in some cases, and the lack of history on revenues in others, means that we cannot use past revenue growth as an input into the estimation of future revenues. As a result, we are often dependent upon the firm s own estimates of future revenues, with all the biases associated with these numbers. Even if we were able to estimate revenues in future years, we have to also estimate how earnings will evolve in future years, as revenues change. Here again, the fact that young companies tend to report losses and have no history on operating income makes it more difficult to assess what future profit margins will be. It is not revenue or even earnings growth per se that determines value, but the quality of that growth. To assess the quality of growth, we looked at how much the firm reinvested to generate its expected growth, noting that value creating growth arises

9 9 only when a firm generates a return on capital greater than its cost of capital on its growth investments. This intuitive concept is put to the test with young companies, because there is little to base the expected return on capital on new investments. Past data provides little guidance, because the company has made so few investments in the past and these investments have been in existence for short periods. The current return on capital, which is often used as a starting point for estimating future returns, is generally a negative number for young companies. In summary, we have a tough time estimating future growth in revenues and operating margins for young companies, and the estimation problems are accentuated by the difficulties we face in coming up with reinvestment assumptions that are consistent with our growth estimates. Discount Rates The standard approaches for assessing the risk in a company and coming up with discount rates are dependent upon the availability of market prices for the securities issued by the firm. Thus, we estimate the beta for equity by regressing returns on a stock against returns on a market index, and the cost of debt by looking at the current market prices of publicly traded bonds. In addition, the traditional risk and return models that we use to estimate the cost of equity focus only on market risk, i.e., the risk that cannot be diversified away, based on the implicit assumption that the marginal investors in a company are diversified. With young companies, these assumptions are open to challenge. First, most young companies are not publicly traded and have no publicly traded bonds outstanding. Consequently, there is no way in which we can run a regression of past returns, to get an equity beta, or use a market interest rate on debt. To add to the problem, the equity in a young company is often held by investors who are either completely invested in the company (founders) or only partially diversified (venture capitalists). As a result, these investors are unlikely to accept the notion that the only risk that matters is the risk that cannot be diversified away and instead will demand compensation for at least some of the firm specific risk.

10 10 Finally, we noted that equity in young companies can come from multiple sources at different times and with very different terms attached to it. It is conceivable that the differences across equity claims can lead to different costs of equity for each one. Thus, the cost of equity for an equity claim that a has first claim on the cash flows may be lower than the cost of equity for an equity claim that has a residual cash flow claim. Terminal Value If the terminal value accounts for a large proportion of the overall value of a typical firm, it is an even bigger component of the value of a young company. In fact, it is not unusual for the terminal value to account for 90%, 100% or even more than 100% of the current value of a young company. Consequently, assumptions about when a firm will reach stable growth, a pre-requisite for estimating terminal value, and its characteristics in stable growth can have a substantial impact on the value that we attach to a young company. Our task, though, is complicated by our inability to answer three questions: a. Will the firm make it to stable growth? In an earlier section, we noted the high failure rate among young firms. In effect, these firms will never make it to stable growth and the terminal value will not provide the large windfall to value that is does for a going concern. Estimating the probability of survival for a firm, early in the life cycle, is therefore a critical component of value, but not necessarily an easy input to estimate. b. When will the firm become a stable growth firm? Even if we assume that a firm will make it to stable growth in the future, estimating when that will occur is a difficult exercise. After all, some firms reach steady state in a couple of years, whereas others have a much longer stretch of high growth, before settling into mature growth. The judgment of when a firm will become stable is complicated by the fact that the actions of competitors can play an important role in how growth evolves over time. c. What will the firm look like in stable growth? It is not just the growth rate in the stable growth rate that determines the magnitude of terminal value but the concurrent assumptions we make about risk and excess returns during the stable phase. In effect, assuming that a firm will continue to generate excess returns

11 11 forever will lead to a higher terminal value than assuming that excess returns will converge on zero or be negative. While this is a judgment that we have to make for any firm, the absence of any historical data on excess returns at young firms does complicate estimation. Value of Equity Claims Once the cash flows have been estimated, a discount rate computed and the present value computed, we have estimated the value of the aggregate equity in the firm. If all equity claims in the firm are equivalent, as is the case with a publicly traded firm with one class of shares, we divide the value of equity proportionately among the claims to get the value per claim. With young firms, there are potential problems that we face in making this allocation judgment, arising from how equity is generally raised at these firms. First, the fact that equity is raised sequentially from private investors, as opposed to issuing shares in a public market, can result in non-standardized equity claims. In other words, the agreements with equity investors at a new round of financing can be very different from prior equity agreements. Second, there can be large differences across equity claims on cash flows and control rights, with some claimholders getting preferential rights over others. Finally, equity investors in each round of financing often demand and receive rights protecting their interests in subsequent financing and investment decisions taken by the firm. The net effect of these diverse equity claims is that allocating the value of equity across different claims requires us to value both the preferential cash flow and control claims and the protective rights built into some equity claims and not into others. As a final point, the lack of liquidity in equity investments in private business have an effect on how much value we attach to them. In general, we should expect more illiquid investments to have less value than more liquid investments, but measuring and pricing the illiquidity in the equity of private businesses is far more difficult to do than in their publicly traded counterparts. Relative Valuation The difficulties that we have outlined in valuing young companies in a discounted cash flow model lead some analysts to consider using relative valuation approaches to

12 12 value these companies. In effect, they try to value young companies using multiples and comparables. However, this task is also made more difficult by the following factors: 1. What do you scale value to? All valuation multiples have to be scaled to some common measure, and conventional scaling measures include earnings, book value and revenues. With young companies, each of these measures can pose problems. Since most of them report losses early in the life cycle, multiples such as price earnings ratios and EBITDA multiples cannot be computed. Since the firm has been in operation only a short period, the book value is likely to be a very small number and not reflect the true capital invested in the company. Even revenues can be problematic, since they can be non-existent for idea companies and miniscule for companies that have just transitioned into commercial production. 2. What are your comparable companies? When relative valuation is used to value a publicly traded company, the comparable firms are usually publicly traded counterparts in the same sector. With young companies, the comparison would logically be to other young companies in the same business but these companies are usually not publicly traded and have no market prices (or multiples that can be computed). We could look at the multiples at which publicly traded firms in the same sector trade at, but these firms are likely to have very different risk, cash flow and growth characteristics than the young firm being valued. 3. What is the best proxy for risk? Many of the proxies used for risk, in relative valuation, are market based. Thus, beta or standard deviation of equity returns are often used as measures of equity risk, but these measures cannot be computed for young companies that are privately held. In some cases, the standard deviation in accounting numbers (earnings and revenues) is used as a measure of risk, but this too cannot be computed for a firm that has been in existence for a short period. 4. How do you control for survival? In the context of discounted cash flow valuation, we looked at the problems created by the high failure rate of young companies. This is also an issue with using relative valuation. Intuitively, we would expect the relative value of a young company (the multiple of revenues or earnings that we assign it) to increase with its likelihood of survival. However, putting this intuitive principle into practice is not easy to do.

13 13 5. How do you adjust for differences in equity claims and illiquidity? With intrinsic valuation, we noted the effect that differences in cash flows and control claims can have on the value of equity claims and the need to adjust this value for illiquidity. When doing relative valuation, we will have to confront the same issues. In conclusion, the use of relative valuation may seem like an easy solution, when faced with the estimation challenges posed in intrinsic valuation, but all of the problems that we face in the latter remain problems when we do the former. The Dark Side of Valuation With the estimation challenges that analysts face in valuing young companies, it should come as no surprise that they look for solutions that seem to, at least on the surface, offer them a way out. Many of these solutions, though, are the source of the valuation errors we see in young company valuations. In this section, we will look at the most common manifestations of what we view as the dark side in young company valuations, and how they play out in venture capital valuations. a. Top line and bottom line, no detail: It is difficult to estimate the details on cash flow and reinvestment for young companies. Consequently, many valuations of young companies focus on the top line (revenues) and the bottom line (earnings, and usually equity earnings), with little or no attention paid to either the intermediate items (that separate earnings from revenues) or the reinvestment requirements (that separate earnings from cash flows) b. Focus on the short term, rather than the long term: The uncertainty we feel about the estimates that we make for young companies become greater as we go further out in time. Many analysts use this as a rationale for cutting short the estimation period, using only three to five years of forecasts in the valuation. It is too difficult to forecast out beyond that point in time is the justification that they offer for this short time horizon. c. Mixing relative with intrinsic valuation: To deal with the inability to estimate cash flows beyond short time periods, analysts who value young companies use relative valuation as a crutch. Thus, the value at then end of the forecast period (three to five years) is often estimated by applying an exit multiple to the expected revenues or

14 14 earnings in that year and the value of that multiple is itself estimated by looking at what publicly traded companies in the business trade at right now. d. Discount rate as the vehicle for all uncertainty: The risks associated with investing in a young company include not only the traditional factors earnings volatility and sensitivity to macroeconomic conditions, for example but also the likelihood that the firm will not survive to make a run at commercial success. When valuing private businesses, analysts often hike up discount rates to reflect all of the concerns that they have about the firm, including the likelihood that the firm will not make it. e. Ad hoc and arbitrary adjustments for differences in equity claims: As we noted in the last section, equity claims in young businesses can have different rights when it comes to cash flow and control and have varying degrees of illiquidity. When asked to make judgments on the value of prior claims on cash flows, superior control rights or lack of liquidity, many analysts use rules of thumb that are either arbitrary or based upon dubious statistical samples. All five of these practices come into play in the most common approach used to value young firms, which is the venture capital approach. This approach has four steps to it: Step 1: We begin by estimating the expected earnings or revenues in a future year, but not too far into the future: two to five years is the typical range. In most cases, the forecast period is set to match the point in time at which the venture capitalist plans to sell the business or take it public. Step 2: The value at the end of the forecast period is assessed by multiplying the expected earnings in the future year by the multiple of earnings (PE ratio) that publicly traded firms in the sector trade at. In some cases, the multiple is based on other companies in the sector that have been sold or gone public recently. Equity Value at end of forecast horizon = Expected Earnings year n * Forecasted PE Alternatively, the revenues at the end of the forecast period can be multiplied by the revenue multiple at which publicly traded firms trade at to arrive at an estimate of the value of the entire business (as opposed to just equity). Enterprise value end of forecast period = Expected Revenues year n * Forecasted EV/Sales

15 15 This approach is used for companies that may not become profitable until later in the life cycle. Step 3: The estimated value at the end of the forecast period is discounted back at a target rate of return, generally set high enough to capture both the perceived risk in the business and the likelihood that the firm will not survive. Since the latter is a high, venture capital required rates of return tend to be much higher than the discount rates that we see used with publicly traded companies. Equity Value today = Equity Value at end of forecast horizon(n) (1+ Target rate of return) n Table 2 summarizes the target rates of return demanded by venture capitalists, categorized by how far along a firm is in the life cycle: Table 2: Venture Capital Target Rates of Return Stage in Life Cycle Stage of development Typical target rates of return Start up 50-70% First stage 40-60% Second stage 35-50% Bridge / IPO 25-35% How do we know that these rates of return have survival risks built into them? In addition to the intuitive rationale that they decrease as firms move through the life cycle and the chance of failure drops off, the actual returns earned by venture capitalists at every stage of the process are much more modest. Table 3 summarizes the actual returns earned by venture capitalists in the aggregate for investments across the life cycle. Table 3: Returns earned by Venture Capitalists year 5 year 10 year 20 year Early/Seed VC 4.90% 5.00% 32.90% 21.40% Balanced VC 10.80% 11.90% 14.40% 14.70% Later Stage VC 12.40% 11.10% 8.50% 14.50% All VC 8.50% 8.80% 16.60% 16.90% NASDAQ 3.60% 7.00% 1.90% 9.20% S&P 2.40% 5.50% 1.20% 8.00%

16 16 Note that the returns earned by venture capitalists, especially on early stage investments, are significantly higher than the returns earned by investors in equity in public markets over the same period, but are no where near the target returns listed in table 2. For instance, early stage VC investors earned an annual return of 21.4% over the last 20 years, well below the 50-70% target returns. In effect, the high target rates of return that are used in analysis are not delivered by most investments (usually the ones that fail to make it to the exit valuation). Step 4: Venture capitalists receive a proportion of the business in return for the capital they bring to the firm. To make a judgment on what proportion of the firm they are entitled to, the new capital brought in is added to the estimated value from step 3 (called the pre-money value) to arrive at the post money valuation of the firm. Post money valuation = Pre Money valuation from step 3 + New capital infusion The proportion of equity that the venture capitalist is entitled to is then computed by dividing the capital infusion by the post-money valuation. Proportion of equity to new capital provider = New Capital Provided Post Money Valuation As we see it, there are several problems with the venture capital approach and many of them are rooted in the practices we listed before: 1. By focusing on revenues and earnings, and ignoring both the intermediate items and those that come after, venture capital valuations encourage game playing. Since value increases as the projected earnings (revenues) increase, the existing owners of the business try to push up these values, without having to flesh out the consequences in terms of future capital investment. On the other side of the bargaining table, venture capitalists will argue for using lower numbers for earnings and revenues, since this pushes down the estimated value (and gives them a greater share of equity for the same capital investment). Consequently, the projected value becomes a bargaining point between the two sides rather than the subject of serious estimation. 2. Venture capital valuations try to avoid the serious challenges of estimating operating details for the long term by cutting off the estimates prematurely (with a short forecast period) and using a multiple that is usually based on what

17 17 comparable companies are trading at currently. However, the multiple of earnings or revenues that a business will trade at 3 years from now will be a function of the cash flows after that point. Not estimating those cash flows or dealing with the uncertainty in the cash flows does not mean that the uncertainty has gone away. 3. There is a degree of sloppiness associated with the use of a target rate to discount the future value of the firm. This target rate is the rate demanded by venture capitalists, who are equity investors in the firm, and this rate incorporates the likelihood that the business will fail. There are two problems with using this number as the discount rate on the future value of the business. The first is that the future value discounted has to be an equity value; this is of course the case when we use expected equity earnings and a PE ratio, but will not be so if we use revenues and enterprise value multiples. In the latter case, we should be considering the cost of capital as the discount rate and not the rate demanded by just equity investors. The second is that building in a probability that the business will not survive into the discount rate also implies that this rate will not change over time, as a firm moves through the life cycle. 4. While the rationale for adding the new capital infusion to the pre-money value is simple, it works only if the new capital raised stays in the firm to be used to fund future investments. If some or all of the new capital is used by existing equity investors to cash out of their ownership in the firm, the portion that is removed from the firm should not be added back to get to the post-money value. Illustration 1: Valuing Secure Mail Venture Capital Approach Secure Mail is a small software company that has developed a new computer virus screening program that it believes will be more effective than existing anti-virus programs. The company is fully owned by its founder and has no debt outstanding. The firm has been in existence only a year, has offered a beta version of the software for free to online users but has never sold the product (revenues are zero). During its year of existence, the firm incurred $ 15 million in expenses, thus recording an operating loss for the year of the same amount. As a venture capitalist, you have been approached about providing $ 30 million in additional capital to the firm, primarily to cover the commercial

18 18 introduction of the software and expanding the market for the next two years. To value the firm, you decide to employ the venture capital approach. 1. The founder believes that the virus program will quickly find a market and that revenues will be $ 300 million by the third year. 2. Looking at publicly traded companies that produce anti-virus software, you come up with two companies that you feel are relevant comparables. Company Market Cap Debt outstanding Cash Enterprise Value Revenues EV/Sales Symantec $9,388 $2,300 $1,890 $9,798 $5, McAfee $4,167 $0 $394 $3,773 $1, You decide to use the average across the two companies, which yields an enterprise value of times revenues. 4 Estimated value in 3 years = Revenues Year 3 * EV/Sales = 300 * = $ million 3. Since this business has a product, ready for the market, but has no history of commercial success, you decide to use a target rate of return of 50%. Since the firm has no debt outstanding, the estimated value is entirely equity and the value today can be estimated as follows: Value today = Estimated value in year 3 (1 + Target return) 3 = = $ million 4. To estimate the post-money valuation, you add the cash proceeds that you will be bringing into the firm to the pre-money value of $ million. Post money value = Pre-money value + Capital infusion = $ million + $ 30 million = $ million The proportion of the equity in the firm that you will receive for your capital infusion can then be computed as follows: Proportional share of equity = Capital infusion Post - money value = = 12.91% Note that these numbers are subject to negotiation and that this is the minimum share that the venture capitalist would accept. The venture capitalist will push for lower future 4 As the venture capitalist, you would probably argue for an even lower number (Symantec s multiple). To counter, the founder of Secure Mail will probably argue that his company will be priced more like McAfee.

19 19 revenues, a more conservative multiple of those revenues in the final year and a higher target rate of return, all of which lower the value of the firm and will give him a higher share of the equity (for the same capital investment). The existing owner of the firm will push for higher future revenues, a higher multiple of these revenues in the final year and a lower target rate of return, all in the interests of pushing up value, and giving up less equity ownership for the capital invested. The Light Side of Valuation While it is understandable that analysts, when confronted with the myriad uncertainties associated with valuing young companies, look for short cuts, there is no reason why young companies cannot be valued systematically. In this section, we will begin by laying out the foundations for estimating the intrinsic value of a young company, move on to consider how best to adapt relative valuation for the special characteristics of young companies and close with a discussion of how real options may be useful, at least for some small businesses. Discounted Cash Flow Valuation To applying discounted cash flow models to valuing young companies, we will move systematically through the process of estimation, considering at each stage, how best to deal with the characteristics of young companies. 1. Estimation of future cash flows In the last section, we noted that many analysts who value young companies forecast just the top and bottom lines (revenues and earnings) for short periods, and offer the defense that it there are far too many uncertainties in the long term to do estimation in detail. We believe that it is important, the uncertainties notwithstanding, to take a look at operating expenses in the aggregate and to go beyond earnings to estimate cash flows. There are two ways in which we can approach the estimation process. In the first, which we term the top down approach, we begin with the total market for the product or service that a company sells and work down to the revenues and earnings of the firm. In the bottom up approach, we work within the capacity constraints of the firm, estimate

20 20 the number of units that will be sold and derive revenues, earnings and cash flows from those units. Top Down Approach In the top-down approach, we start by estimating the total market for a product or service and derive the rest of the numbers from that top line. In effect, we estimate the revenues first and then consider how much we need as capacity (and capital to create this capacity) to sustain these revenues. The steps involved in the process are the following: 1. Potential market for the product/service: The first step in deriving the revenues for the firm is estimating the total potential market for its products and services. There are two challenges we face at this juncture. a. Defining the product/service offered by the firm: If the product or service offered by the firm is defined narrowly, the potential market will be circumscribed by that definition and will be smaller. If we use a broader definition, the market will expand to fit that definition. For example, defining Amazon.com as a book retailer, which is what it was in 1998, would have yielded a total market of less than $ 10 billion in that year, representing total book retailing sales in Categorizing Amazon.com as a general retailer would have yielded a much larger potential market. While that might have been difficult to defend in 1998, it did become more plausible as Amazon expanded its offerings in 1999 and b. Estimating the market size: Having defined the market, we face the challenge of estimating the size of that market. For a product or service that is entering an established market, the best sources of data tend to be trade publications and professional forecasting services. Almost every business has a trade group that tracks the operating details of that business; there are almost 7600 trade groups just in the United States, tracking everything from aerospace to telecom. 5 In many businesses, there are firms that specialize in collecting information about the businesses for commercial and consulting purposes. For 5 Wikipedia has an excellent listing of industry trade groups, with links to each one. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/list_of_industry_trade_groups_in_the_united_states)

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